“Recalling his first encounter with Amis in the quad at St John’s College, Larkin wrote: ‘For the first time I felt myself in the presence of a talent greater than my own.’ ” Neil Powell on the friendship of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin.

“A colleague says he has overheard some of the digital generation discussing how a really devoted lover should write a letter by hand, scan it and email it to his or her partner.” Andrew Hill on the past and future of letter writing.

A photo of Mark Twain playing with electricity in Nikola Tesla’s laboratory.